League, union scheduled to start finalizing CBA tomorrow

Posted by Mike Florio on July 29, 2011, 11:03 PM EDT

Getty Images

Football is back, but the labor issues of the past five months (or, as the case may be, three years) still aren’t completely resolved.

Albert Breer of NFL Network reports that the league and the recertified union will begin talking about specific noneconomic work issues on Saturday. Drug testing, benefits, and discipline reportedly are on the agenda.

Despite the open issues, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith told PFT Live on Thursday that he anticipates no problems. Still, a fight could be looming regarding the question of whether the personal conduct policy will apply retroactively, during the lockout.

As NFLPA spokesman George Atallah told PFT Live earlier in the week, “Something tells me our members are going to tell us to deal with that pretty aggressively. I’ll just leave it at that.”

It’s likely a matter of time before the two sides get the remaining issues ironed out. But there’s not unlimited time to make it happen. The 2011 League Year is due to start by Thursday, August 4. And the League Year can’t begin until the CBA is finished.

This is something that could not happen until the NFLPA lost it’s asterick. Now they can turn the settleent into an actual CBA by agreeing to the varius policcies and benefits packages. I really hope they league will be allowed to dea with the idiots (Britt, Talib, Ward and and especially Pacman) that thought they were free from league sanctions during the lock out that they truly deserve.

FWIW I heard Mort say a couple days ago something to the effect of that even Smith is concerned at the way the NFL is represented by dome of these guys and Mort doesn’t expect Goodell NOT to be the only person who decides or who is appealed to on decisions in discipline.

The league shouldn’t be allowed to apply the personal conduct policy for player actions during the lockout! Players should push back on that one!!!

But I agree I want this CBA crap talk to stop… been too much fun over the past 3-4 days actually seeing some real football talk!!! As long as that doens’t change, they can do what they need to do to finalize this CBA